Pump Up Your Book Chats with Mike O’Mary

Mike O' Mary Mike O’Mary is series editor of the Dream of Things anthologies including Saying Goodbye, an anthology of true stories about people saying goodbye to the people, places and things in our lives with grace, dignity and good humor.  He is founder of Dream of Things, a book publisher and online retailer. He is also author of The Note, a book about the power of appreciation, and Wise Men and Other Stories, a collection of holiday-related essays. For more information, visit www.goodbyebook.com.

About Saying Goodbye

Saying Goodbye is a collection of true stories about saying goodbye to the people, places and things in our lives. This is a powerful book that includes a number of sad stories, as well as some very funny ones. Taken together, the stories serve as amazing examples of people saying heartfelt goodbyes with grace, dignity, and good humor.

Saying Goodbye includes stories contributed by thirty-one authors from the United States, Canada, Ireland, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere. These stories show that there is sadness in goodbyes, but there is also irony and humor. It s perfect for book groups that want stimulating conversations about saying goodbye a topic that touches us all in one way or another.

Saying Goodbye is the first anthology from book publisher Dream of Things in a new series intended to fill the gap between popular anthologies of stories that are “short and sweet” (sometimes so saccharine-sweet they are hard to swallow) and the Best American Essays series, which are much longer. Instead of short and sweet, Dream of Things anthologies are intended to be short and deep.

Saying Goodbye sm On Saying Goodbye

Q: Can you tell us why you published this book?

Mike: Saying Goodbye is an anthology of creative nonfiction about how we say goodbye to the people, places and things in our lives. It’s the first anthology from Dream of Things, which was launched to publish anthologies of creative nonfiction that will fill the gap between popular anthologies that publish stories that are “short and sweet” (sometimes so saccharine-sweet they are hard to swallow) and the Best American Essays series, which tends to be quite a bit longer. The goal for Dream of Things anthologies is to be not short and sweet, but short and deep. With depth comes authenticity. The result is stories that are easier to swallow because they are authentic, and easier to digest because they average 1,250 words in length.

Q: What was the hardest part of selecting stories for this book?

Mike: We had a lot of great stories to choose from. It was easy to select the powerful stories that were well-written. The hard part was passing on the handful of stories that were powerful, but not quite as well-written.

Q: Does your book have an underlying message?

Mike: I was worried that a book of stories about “saying goodbye” would be too sad for readers. But people have told me that Saying Goodbye is actually a very uplifting book…that reading the stories is cathartic. So I think that’s the underlying message: Sharing stories is cathartic. That’s part of the role of the storyteller in society.

On Books in General

Q:  What was one of your favorite books as a child?

Mike: The Boxcar Children. Also Robinson Crusoe. I think very early on, I became a fan of characters that are independent and self-sufficient.

Q: What is your favorite book as an adult?

Mike: I’m going to say my favorite books as an adult are the three I published in my first year as a publisher. Saying Goodbye (goodbyebook.com), Everything I Never Wanted to Be (everythinginever.com), and MFA in a Box (mfainabox.com) are all outstanding books. I’m proud to have published them. Also, by selecting my own books, I get out of having to choose between dozens of other books. How do you pick one book from the likes of Twain, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Salinger and Vonnegut anyway?

Q: What are you reading now?

Mike: Payne Hollow by Harlan Hubbard. If you aren’t familiar with the story of Harlan Hubbard, I highly recommend his autobiographical books about life on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers in the mid-1900s. He and his wife, Anna, opted for a simpler way of life. Their story is inspiring.

On Writing

Q: In addition to being a publisher, you are a writer. Do you remember when the writing bug hit?

Mike: I was a senior in high school. I wrote a story about growing up in Louisville. It was a mix of humor and pathos, and that’s what I’ve been writing ever since.

Q: Besides books, what else do you write?  Do you write for publications?

Mike: I’ve written a lot of essays that were published in Sunday magazines or that I read on NPR. I’ve also written and produced sketch comedy shows.

Q: Do you have a writing tip you’d like to share?

Mike: Whenever you get stuck in your writing, read. Reading always gets me going. If it’s an author who writes better than I do, it inspires me. If it an author who doesn’t write as well as I can, it motivates me.

On Family and Home:

Q:  Would you like to tell us about your home life?

Mike: My fiancée and I live in a 140-year-old Victorian house on a cobblestone street in a town that was settled in the 1830s and is now a suburb of Chicago. My daughter lives nearby in Chicago.

Q: Where’s your favorite place to write at home?

Mike: Out on the front porch with a cup of coffee.

Q: What do you do to get away from it all?

Mike: Take vacations once in a while. Even if it’s just a little driving vacation, it helps me to get away from my home office. Otherwise I’m working most of the time.

On Childhood:

Q: Were you the kind of child who always had a book in her/his hand?

Mike: There was a stretch from age eight to about twelve when I was in a summer reading program and I used to walk to the Shelby Street Library to get as many books as they would let me check out in a week. I read a lot then. But when I got into my teens, I was more interested in acting like Huckleberry Finn than in reading about him. I got into all kinds of trouble.

Q: Do you remember writing stories when you were a child?

Mike: I was more of a producer than a writer as a kid. I recall making guitars out of cardboard so we could pretend we were the Beatles, and I recall putting on my own carnival games for kids in the neighborhood—and giving them my toys as prizes! Denise Ising was so excited when she knocked over a couple of bowling pins with a football and won a used paddle-ball.

On Book Promotion:

Q: What was the first thing you did as far as promoting your book?

Mike: The first thing I did was to create a website for the book where I could publish excerpts. I felt that if people could read some of the stories, they would fall in love with the book. The next thing I did was ask the 31 contributors to Saying Goodbye to help spread the word to family and friends via word of mouth, websites, blogs, social media…and to ask their friends to do the same. Several contributors have also had readings in their home towns. It’s been great.

Q: Are you familiar with the social networks and do you actively participate?

Mike: Dream of Things is on Twitter and Facebook, and there’s a page for Saying Goodbye on Facebook as well. But there’s a lot more I could and should be doing on those and other social networks, on Goodreads.com for example.

Q: How do you think book promotion has changed over the years?

Mike: The biggest change is that the big daily newspapers used to give a lot of space to books and do a lot of book reviews. But newspapers have cut back so much that there’s very little space for book reviews. So blogging is the way of the future for the book industry. But it’s only going to work if people help spread the word when they hear about a good book and recommend it to their friends. Word-of-mouth marketing is the difference between success or failure for a small publisher.

On Book Publishing

Q: What is the most frustrating part of being an author?

Mike: Getting the story onto the page in a way that somewhat resembles the beautiful picture you have in your mind.

Q: What is the most rewarding?

Mike: Getting the story onto the page in a way that somewhat resembles the beautiful picture you have in your mind.

Q: How do you think book publishing has changed over the years?

Mike: I believe that e-books and other recent developments in publishing are going to lead to even more publishing opportunities for authors. Getting published may not pay as well on average as it has in the past (although for the vast majority of writers, it never did pay well!), but I believe that if you want to get published, your chances of doing so are better today than they have been at any time in the past. You can get published online, by small publishers, by large publisher, or you can self publish. Books are being produced on traditional offset presses, in digital short-runs, via print-on-demand, and now in multiple e-book formats. These are exciting times.

On Other Fun Stuff:

Q: If you had one wish, what would that be?

Mike: That I had a coffee cup that said “Coffee: Because you can sleep when you’re dead.”

Q: If you could be anywhere in the world other than where you are right now, where would that place be?

Mike: In Yelapa, Mexico, a place with no cars and no crime, sitting in a pelapa (grass hut), high up on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean, sipping some coffee and reading a book.

Q: Your book has just been awarded a Pulitzer.  Who would you thank?

My mother, my daughter and my fiancée for their unwavering support. Robin Metz, my first creative writing professor and long-time mentor, and John Rember, my best friend and long-time writing colleague.


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